


Five Times Benny Dreamed of Flying

by karrenia_rune



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Minor Character(s), Pre-Movie(s), Yuletide New Year's Resolutions Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much what it says on the tin; a character study of Benny and his dream of flying, in space, in the air; it's all good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Benny Dreamed of Flying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beckymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckymonster/gifts).



"Five Times Benny Dreamed of Being able to Fly" by Karrenia

He dreamt of flying; he imagined himself as a pilot on even something as every day as a 747 jumbo jet. It’s flying among the clouds, between point A and point B, control towers and digital readouts and flight plans. If Benny had had to reckon just when and where and how his dreams of flying began he might have to count back a score of years to when he was just a wee lad of no more than seven or eight years. He would go to the park and climb up to the top of the play structure, spreading his arms as if they were not arms at all but winged appendages and jumping off.

The concern that he might not actually succeed in flying and instead come crashing down like a stone hurled from on high simply never occurred to him. He hadn’t succeeded in flying then and vaguely recalls, rather blearily and shamefacedly being carried home to his parents by an older teenaged girl with red hair and freckles. He thought her name might have been Susanna, or even Angie or something like that.

He’d managed to get out of the mishap relatively unscathed, skinned knees, and a twisted ankle, not to mention a slightly bruised ego. It was a toss up which injury hurt worse, but at eight years old Benny didn’t have as much of an ego to damage so it was okay.

He remembered that an older teenaged girl with red hair and freckles coming over to pick him up off the ground, take him home and deliver him to his folks. His parents had tended to his hurts, made him dinner and forbade him from any more experiments in defying gravity. 

A bit daunted he promised that he would do so and set his sights a bit lower, and instead concentrated his next few years on the mechanism of flight like propulsion and lift and the brand-new chemistry set his parents gave at Christmas. Dreams of being able to fly were put on the back burner for the next four years. Mixing chemicals and pouring things back in forth into beakers and making what his mother referred to as a 'cumbersome racket,' and his father called 'boys being boys, and figured as long as their son didn't to hurt anyone or burn down the house; then he should be encouraged to explore the mysteries of science and engineering. Seeing the way the wind blew, his mother at last, relented. 

The second time Benny went back to exploring his early aspirations came when Benny turned ten years old; he remembers that particular birthday quite well because it was the first time he was old enough to participate in the quarter annual Lego City Science Fair. Most of the kids in his class were making volcanos or something like that, and Benny’s grandfather had given him a subscription to the Lego City periodical Popular Mechanics. 

He was in love. He stood at his station with his balsa and paint models of the fighter jets he’d seen in those glossy pages and had done his best to recreate them, not to mention bring in a di0rama of how they worked and, very proud of himself, were aero-dynamic. It was a nice, ten-cent sounding word and one he was very fond of.

The girl with the red hair and the freckles was there also, although in the senior division and she came over to him and smiled. “Do you remember me?” I’m Lucy.  
“I’m Benny,” he managed to get out with stammering of blushing overly much. “Uh, nice to meet you.”

“I see we’re still into things that fly,” she remarked.

“You remember that?” asked Benny.

“Yes, and I did not mean to make you uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have come by after I helped you out back then, it was just that my parents were always moving from place to place and well,” she shrugged, adding, “You know how it is. I’m glad I got a chance to see you again, Benny. Good luck in the judging competition.”

“You, too,” he replied.

The third time Benny dreamed of flying it was a really odd dream; in it, he was a giant bird with a wingspan as big as his tool shed back home. His wings were an electric blue color with hints of gray underneath and gleamed in the sunlight as soared, dipped and exulted in the freedom of flight. 

As a bird he caught a rising thermal and soared up,up and away, across the outskirts of Lego City, and looking down through his hawk’s eyes he could see his house where his parent’s lived; he could spot his apartment complex where he lived and the industrial complex where he built and flew planes. The people tiny as motes of dust on summer window, and he thought I could get used to this flying thing right enough.’

The fourth time Benny dreamt of flying it was a pilot for a company that flew airplanes and helicopters for any Lego City citizen that cared to take a tour from a birds-eye view. He didn’t mind, at least, he was in the air; at least he was doing something he loved to do. And, better yet Lucy was there. Despite the differences in their ages, he had come to think of her as the big sister that he had never had, and she, in turn, had come to treat him as the kid brother that she had never had. It was all good.

The fifth time wasn’t a dream although it came close because he had managed to construct a shiny, electric blue spaceship complete with aero-dynamics pistons, swing doors that opened on either side of its sleek blue hull and it gleamed in the slanting sunlight that cut in through the high arched windows of the hanger which housed it. 

He mopped his brow and regarded his handiwork with a tired but proud gaze. “The realization of all my hopes and dreams and effort, and I can’t get out of the bloody hangar. Might have to call Lucy or that monk friend of hers and see if they have any bright ideas on how best to accomplish that.”

Disclaimer: The Lego Movie belongs to Hasbro and its producers and creators. It is not mine.


End file.
